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The question

What do you fear most?

Originally asked

Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire

The exact prompt is fixed in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire and independently sustained in The Guardian's The Q&A over multiple decades.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Others on this question

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Kevin Rowland British singer
Insanity. I am on a recovery programme – clean from drugs and drink for many years – and if I stopped doing all that stuff I’d go crazy pretty quick and pick up drugs again, because I was a real fucking addict.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 August 2025 source ↗

More from Patti Smith

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Question What counsel would you give your twenty-year-old self — and what should they ignore? Time & hindsight
Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don’t make compromises. Don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned about doing good work and protect your work. […] Protect your work and if you build a good name, eventually that name will be its own currency.
Recorded Christian Lund, Louisiana Literature festival, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 24 August 2012, Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 24 August 2012 source ↗

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Judy Blume, Eugene Levy, Carrie Fisher, Cory Taylor, Stephen Fry, Jack Whitehall

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